Almanac

Can we rise to the challenge of rising sea levels

San Mateo County is "ground zero" for economic devastation, but entire region is threatened

by Dave Boyce

Imagine a darkened bedroom around midnight. You're lying there in the silence waiting for sleep to come. From the direction of the closet comes a soft scuffling noise. Curious and maybe a bit alarmed, you sit up, but carefully; you don't want to draw attention to your presence. Holding your breath, you wait, your head at a slight angle, the better to hear whatever it is.

There the noise is again, and again. It rattles the sliding door. It sounds bigger than a mouse, and unafraid. You're the adult in the room. Now what? Panic? Quietly call 9-1-1, silly though your complaint may sound? Or lock the closet and bedroom doors, go downstairs, break out the cheese and crackers and turn on the TV?

This is roughly where we find ourselves in San Mateo County. The monster in the closet is rising sea level, an issue that humanity will be dealing with for at least the next 1,000 years, climate scientists say. Ocean levels are expected to rise 2 to 3 feet by the year 2100.

If steps are not taken in San Mateo County, salt water will cover the runways of San Francisco International Airport, flood the access points to the Dumbarton and San Mateo bridges, and threaten about $24 billion of infrastructure and property, including major corporations and the homes of about about 110,000 residents.

This catalog of consequences came up for discussion at a Dec. 9 conference at the College of San Mateo. About 300 people attended, including academics, elected officials, public works staff and members of the environmental community, said state Assemblyman Rich Gordon (D-Menlo Park). Mr. Gordon shared conference-hosting duties with U.S. Congresswoman Jackie Speier (D-San Mateo) and county Supervisor Dave Pine, whose district includes the airport.

Among the experts invited to talk: John Englander, an oceanographer; Will Travis, a former executive director of the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC); Larry Goldzband, the current BCDC executive director; Maximilian Auffhammer, a professor of environmental economics at the University of California at Berkeley; and Julian Potter, the chief of staff at SFO.

The seas are warming faster than at any time in the last 500 million years, and it's been 120,000 years since sea levels have been as high as they are right now, Mr. Englander told the assembly. Using ice cores extracted from ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica, scientists have tracked 420,000 years of trends in sea level, global temperature and heat-trapping atmospheric carbon dioxide. It turns out that these three gradually, and in unison, change direction on 120,000-year intervals.

Such an interval is happening now, Mr. Englander said. According to a chart in his presentation, temperature and sea level are inconclusive, but not carbon dioxide. It is not only not showing indications of heading toward lower concentrations, it is rising straight up — literally off the chart.

How quickly sea level rises and its rate of rise depend significantly, but not exclusively, on future greenhouse gas emissions and the steps humanity takes to lower them, Mr. Englander said. There are wild cards: Massive quantities of methane lie frozen on ocean floors; if the water warms to the point at which that methane begins freely bubbling up to the surface, warming would accelerate dramatically.

In any case, humanity needs to get itself organized.

Let's get regional?

Eleven Burlingame hotels serving the airport sit within a stone's throw of the water. San Mateo County has nine waste-water treatment plants at sea level. U.S. 101 and Caltrain are at sea level, as are the corporate campuses of Oracle, Facebook and Genentech. As are Santa Clara County's Google and Intuit, Yahoo and Lockheed Martin, Cisco and Intel, according to a map presented at the conference.

Is Silicon Valley capable of organizing for the betterment of the future of the Bay Area? As an entrepreneurial and venture capital magnet with renowned universities, high-performing school districts, unrivaled good weather, and secluded living in wealthy bedroom communities, it's become a multifaceted economic powerhouse that more or less built itself. And rebuilds itself with each high-tech wave. Who needs regionalism?

And who needs California? How will the high-tech community respond to literal waves washing up on corporate campuses, on transportation infrastructure, on low-lying communities where employees live? Does technology somehow pull a rabbit out of the hat and come to the rescue? It hasn't so far. Or does the powerhouse wind down as corporate loyalty to the region evaporates and the simple step of moving inland starts making sense? Centers of innovation in Texas, Illinois, North Carolina and elsewhere would be calling. Google is setting up operations on barges.

Perhaps it's time that attention be paid. But by whom? And what will it take to get their attention? The threat is similar to that of a major earthquake, but it's incremental rather than sudden. It also hasn't happened, not only in San Mateo County but in 7,000 years of recorded human history. The remedies, including wetland rehabilitation, levees and sea walls, will be expensive and perhaps daunting in terms of getting buy-in from the tax-paying public.

With San Mateo and Santa Clara counties as the traditional geese laying the high-tech golden eggs, what is the role of the other seven Bay Area counties in a mutual aid situation? Losses along the San Mateo County coast and bay side would be 39 percent of total Bay Area losses — essentially "ground zero," Mr. Travis of BCDC said.

"It's uncharted territory and there's no point … in just becoming angry or finding blame," Mr. Englander said. "It's like anything else; it's reality. While we may want to slow (emissions), we really need to begin to deal with the symptoms and what it means for how we live."

"It's the one thing that we need to plan for that's going to change everything and that we have no prior experience with, and that's what makes it different" he said. "We need to put sea-level rise in context and begin to envision a different world."

Taking action

For years, efforts to slow global warming and climate change have focused on mitigation — lowering emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, which trap heat in the atmosphere rather than letting it dissipate into frigid outer space. Adaptation to climate change was the focus on Dec. 9. Not that mitigation is unimportant, but that it is unrealistic to expect it to work in time.

To move toward adaptation, a collaborative conversation among local governments, nonprofit and for-profit organizations should begin in San Mateo County as it began two years ago in Alameda County, said Larry Goldzband of BCDC. The objective of Alameda County's Adapting to Rising Tides (ART) program: a measurable strengthening of resilience to climate change among neighborhoods, cities, counties and regions.

"We're doing this collaboratively in a non-regulatory way so that folks … will actually understand what will end up happening in their neighborhoods and can actually plan for it," Mr. Goldzband said. "ART is successful because it's non-threatening (and) it is non-regulatory (and) it is a flagship program nationally." It doesn't scare people into paralysis, but educates them to enable positive thinking, he added.

People need to understand what the projections of sea-level rise mean for day-to-day lives, said Maximilian Auffhammer, the UC Berkeley professor of environmental economics. It's a matter of asking people to incur costs now for a return later.

The threat is not necessarily decades away, he said. Higher sea levels amplify the flooding potential of severe storms, as Hurricane Sandy demonstrated on the East Coast. Changes at the local level such as allowing homeowners to elevate their homes and rezoning areas vulnerable to extreme weather events are worthy of consideration, he said.

SFO will be reaching out to its immediate neighbors, including Millbrae and Burlingame, to talk about strengthening the defenses around the airport's 8-mile circumference, said Ms. Potter, the SFO chief of staff. The airport has a $4.2 billion construction project going on and expects to create 36,000 jobs in the next decade, she said. "We're investing for the Bay Area, for jobs, for the economy." The airport recently paid $367 million in taxes on annual revenues of $5.5 billion, she said.

In Washington, D.C., a wellspring of federal assistance as well as a nexus of red tape and the province of skilled lobbyists, clout is currency. Conference panelists recommended establishing a federally funded county flood control district, as has been done in Sacramento. Congresswoman Speier said that would be a priority when she returned to Congress.

Wetlands, and their ability to absorb flood water and wave energy, are crucial, said Mr. Goldzband and Mr. Travis, his predecessor at BCDC. "Wetlands are about as close to magic as you're ever going to get when you're dealing with flooding," Mr. Travis said. "The wider the wetland is at the front, the lower the levee can be at the back."

There are limits. "Even if we find the necessary money to build all the levees, all the sea walls, all the pumps and all the infrastructure, we have to acknowledge that sea level will continue to get higher at an ever-accelerating rate in the future," Mr. Travis added. "So eventually, we won't be able to protect everything exactly the way it is today. At some point, levees aren't viable." At that point, we should look to the Dutch for lessons on how to live with high sea levels, Mr. Travis said.

"The fact that we encourage people to live and build in flood plains is, I think, problematic," Supervisor Pine said. "What has been a 100-year (flood) event could easily become a 10- or 20- or 30-year event. I think we need to start moving, like the Dutch, towards a longer time horizon."

Posted by anony,
a resident of another community
on Jan 7, 2014 at 1:05 pm

The timing of this story couldn't be worse for those pushing the global warming theory. According to NASA, the sea ice in Antarctica has grown to its largest extent since measurements began in 1979. A group of climate change researchers whose ship became stuck in the expanding Antarctic ice had to be rescued last week. Under the global warming theory, the ice on Antarctica should be melting away -- not growing. The facts on the ground are very different from those being presented by local climate alarmists.

(Note: I use the term global warming deliberately. I realize the pushers of this theory have switched to "climate change." That's because we've gone for 16 years with the earth's temperature not rising, contrary to the original gloom-and-doom scenarios. So as the facts change, the doom-sayers change their theory. The bottom line is that liberals are trying to persuade people that humans control the weather (rather than God), and if we don't pay more taxes and surrender more land to the government, the world will spin out of control. Some people actually believe this stuff while others know it's a myth they can use to control the masses.)

"the sea ice in Antarctica has grown to its largest extent since measurements began in 1979."

While ARTIC ice nearly evaporated the last couple summers.

90% of the world's climatologists understand that man has caused Global Climate Change.

> "that humans control the weather (rather than God)"

really? How many scientists believe weather is controlled by your God? Odd. My God doesn't do weather. Does that make your God a vengeful God when tornadoes wipe out a grammar school? Odd that. Does go with the findings that most republicans don't believe in evolution.

Yeah, I want to believe creationists when it comes to science -- how crazy is that???

> "we've gone for 16 years with the earth's temperature not rising"

really? You need to come up with more complicated lies, so you might be able to defend your lies: "Four of the world's leading climate research centres agree that the 10 hottest years on record have all occurred since 1998. These data and findings for 2010 add weight to the common conclusion that the clear, long-term trend is one of global warming." Web Link

But I just got an email from Exxon - they thank you for doing their job!! Spreading some absurd myth that scientists all benefit from getting together and lying about temperature readings.... wow, that's quite the tin foil hat you're modeling!

Posted by Julie,
a resident of another community
on Jan 7, 2014 at 3:04 pm

Even before I finished reading this article I was reasonably sure that someone would come on this comment section and call it all bogus, just bunk...and of course, the old story, "nothing to worry about". Of course, everyone has the right to their own opinion.

I agree with Matt. Thanks for the link.

Some people just don't believe in global warming. People don't believe what they don't want to believe, I don't care how much evidence or expert opinions are provided.

WHY they don't believe it...or don't want to believe it is the mystery.

Posted by Global joke,
a resident of Atherton: other
on Jan 8, 2014 at 9:25 am

There is no global weather changes. None. There are three types of liars and statistics is certainly one, because the dorks coding and selecting the stats that will support their agenda are also liars, or damn liars, depending upon which of the three ya want.

If is very important to dupe gullibles like some of the above since several OTHER government parasite arms have THEIR own agendas. Perceptual engineering is the first step while simultaneously the other illegal gov. activities are working. If a leak of the latter occurs, then the spin is used linking whatever concept as an apology, in this case, 'global' whatever.

Believe NOTHING of what you hear and only half of what you see. And if you see the gov. doing something, believe NOTHING. Not being cynical but using pure reason. We're ruled by gangsters and have been for decades.

Oh, doncha know? ALL the scientists are part of a VAST CONSPIRACY so they can get more grants!!!!!!

Seriously. That's the tin foil hat conspiracy. That's why the Pentagon has global climate change plans in place. They must be in on it also!!

> "Believe NOTHING of what you hear and only half of what you see."

Have you heard of the Bible? Do you have any Faith? Or only "half of what you see"?

Clearly, even you don't believe your silly statements and the tripe you espouse. You even have to dip to absurd insults to try and deflect from truth: "dorks" "liars" "gullibles" (sic) "parasite" "gangsters"

> "but using pure reason" "Dorks" is "pure reason"? Hoo-boy, we have a winner here!

Posted by Bob,
a resident of Atherton: West Atherton
on Jan 8, 2014 at 1:25 pm

The first clue that this article is bogus is the statement that "The seas are warming faster than at any time in the last 500 million years..." Really, 500 million years? How was this measured? The continents and seas 500 million years ago were nothing like they are today - this is pre-dinosaurs!

And the comment in a previous thread that "While ARTIC ice nearly evaporated the last couple summers" is curious. Nearly evaporated? Does ice evaporate? What does "nearly" mean?

Basically, all the climate change theories are based on several computer models which do not agree with one another. Coefficients are modified periodically to develop new predictions when the prior ones do not materialize. If the models are so great, why not model the climate for the last few thousand years and explain the causes for warming and cooling periods that have been well documented. As with all political issues, just follow the money...

featuring: "Given that the Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the globe, understanding the processes and feedbacks of this polar amplification is a top priority. In addition, Arctic glaciers and the Greenland Ice Sheet are expected to change significantly and contribute to sea level rise in the coming decades."

Not enough for you, Bob? How about: "The U.S. military is looking for ways to expand operations in the vast waters of the Arctic as melting ice caps open sea lanes and other nations such as Russia compete..." Web Link

Or how about this: "In 2012, the ice cap over the Arctic Ocean shrank to its lowest extent ever recorded."

None of Bob's "coefficients" there, eh, what?

Tell us Bob, what did you find when you followed your own admonition? "As with all political issues, just follow the money..."

I found an Arctic with "ice nearly EVAPORATED the last couple summers". Apparently, you find unproven tinfoil conspiracies. If you disagree, the SHOW ME THE MONEY. Web Link

Michael S thinks the US Navy is Liberal and has a mental disorder. Their purpose is to "tax us more, deprive us of our freedoms, and tell us what to do" (some truth to the first part.) and the USN "don't know what they are talking about."

US NAVY: "Given that the Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the globe, ... In addition, Arctic glaciers and the Greenland Ice Sheet are expected to change significantly and contribute to sea level rise in the coming decades."

What a fantasy world Michael and Bob live in! It's the world of Rush the convicted druggie Limbaugh saying that Polar Vortex is a phrase made up this week by liberals!

Posted by Michael S,
a resident of another community
on Jan 8, 2014 at 3:20 pm

It is not the U.S. Navy, it is the Commander in Chief. The Navy Admirals are biding their time until they can retire. When they retire they will be singing the same tune as Robert Gates. Even the Washington Post didn't suppress this

Posted by Easy Does It,
a resident of Menlo Park: Downtown
on Jan 8, 2014 at 8:35 pm

IMHO, it does no good to toss accusations back and forth, and name-calling only angers people.
The point is to get to the truth, and one doesn't do it by belittling others, or by blind faith in the official story, one does it by researching, delving into things, and using one's analytical abilities to figure things out.
Clearly, either catastrophic global warming is occurring or it is not.
To discover the reality, take a look at well-documented books on both sides of the equation.
Personally, I find books like "Climate: The Counter Consensus", and "The Cold Sun" to be more compelling than the arguments on the other side. And as Bob says, Follow the money. It is a surprising journey.

Posted by Frosty the Snowman,
a resident of Menlo Park: The Willows
on Jan 9, 2014 at 9:30 am

Here's what we need to understand:

If it is cold, it is because of global warming.
If it is hot, it is because of global warming.
If it is raining, it is because of global warming.
If it is not raining, it is because of global warming.
If there is more polar ice, it is because of global warming.
If there is less polar ice, it is because of global warming.

And it is all Bush's fault too!!!

Any questions?

BTW, Niagara Falls has frozen on the U.S. side. On Monday Chicago's O'Hare Airport was 5 degrees colder than the South Pole.

Please, as I asked Michael, tell us of this surprising journey. Michael has yet to share your riveting tale!

The Big Money trail I see is Exxon and Koch Brother money to fraud groups like Heartland. And, of course, to politicians that deny facts such as:

US NAVY: "Given that the Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the globe, ... In addition, Arctic glaciers and the Greenland Ice Sheet are expected to change significantly and contribute to sea level rise in the coming decades."

Pretty interesting that weather is being pushed behind the news of Christie's implosion, except on Fox, where they quickly cut from Christie's news conference! At least Christie understood climate change is real, even before superstorm Sandy devastated his state. From 2011:

Christie: "the governor said "climate change is real." He added that "human activity plays a role in these changes" and that climate change is "impacting our state."

Now with Christie out of the running (either a Liar, an admitted poor "hands-off" manager, or both) we get the rest of the GOP field to out-fringe each other with the standard GOP whacko statements like "47%" and "legitimate rape".

It will be very entertaining now that the GOP's best shot is out. Their absurd falsehoods about Climate Change will certainly be included, so they may placate Exxon and Koch's and SHOW US THE MONEY.

Wow. The news is bad for the GOP, but great for the far right fringe that won't believe scince!

Christie, one of the few Republicans to acknowledge the science on climate change is now toast, leaving the opportunity to lose to Hilary, wide open to the fringe GOP candidates like Santorum, Ron Paul, Huck, the Green Eggs wacko from Texas (sorry, Canada), etc.. .

Even before today's presser where Christie almost cried as he called himself a "victim" the NY Daily News took this shot:

"In the best possible light, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie built a top staff of lying thugs who threatened lives and safety to serve his political ends. If not, Christie is a lying thug himself."

Good thing you won that reelection, big boy, your poll numbers are dropping off a cliff. Mr 47% Romney was wondering why you stopped campaigning for him the last week.... maybe he's getting even.

The loss is that one of the few Republicans that understood simple science is now a discredited lying gasbag.

Sort of about right, considering the others he was going to run against.

5. Solar Activity appears to be the principal driver for Climate Change, accompanied by complex ocean currents which distribute the heat and control local weather systems.

6. CO2 is a useful trace gas in the atmosphere, and the planet would actually benefit by having more, not less of it, because it is not a driver for Global Warming and would enrich our vegetation, yielding better crops to feed the expanding population.

7. CO2 is not causing global warming, in fact, CO2 is lagging temperature change in all reliable datasets. The cart is not pulling the donkey, and the future cannot influence the past.

8. Nothing happening in the climate today is particularly unusual, and in fact has happened many times in the past and will likely happen again in the future.

9. The UN IPCC has corrupted the "reporting process" so badly, it makes the oil-for-food scandal look like someone stole some kid's lunch money. They do not follow the Scientific Method, and modify the science as needed to fit their predetermined conclusions. In empirical science, one does NOT write the conclusion first, then solicit "opinion" on the report, ignoring any opinion which does not fit their predetermined conclusion while falsifying data to support unrealistic models.

10. Polar Bear populations are not endangered, in fact current populations are healthy and at almost historic highs. The push to list them as endangered is an effort to gain political control of their habitat... particularly the North Slope oil fields.

11. There is no demonstrated causal relationship between hurricanes and/or tornadoes and global warming. This is sheer conjecture totally unsupported by any material science.

12. Observed glacial retreats in certain select areas have been going on for hundreds of years, and show no serious correlation to short-term swings in global temperatures.

13. Greenland is shown to be an island completely surrounded by water, not ice, in maps dating to the 14th century. There is active geothermal activity in the currently "melting" sections of Greenland.

14. The Antarctic Ice cover is currently the largest ever observed by satellite, and periodic ice shelf breakups are normal and correlate well with localized tectonic and geothermal activity along the Antarctic Peninsula.

15. The Global Warming Panic was triggered by an artifact of poor mathematics which has been thoroughly disproved. The panic is being deliberately nurtured by those who stand to gain both financially and politically from perpetuation of the hoax.

16. Scientists who "deny" the hoax are often threatened with loss of funding or even their jobs.

17. The correlation between solar activity and climate is now so strong that solar physicists are now seriously discussing the much greater danger of pending global cooling.

18. Biofuel hysteria is already having a disastrous effect on world food supplies and prices, and current technologies for biofuel production consume more energy than the fuels produce.

Whaaaa???? Thanks. You destroyed your credibility instantly with that one!

> 20. In short, there is no "climate crisis" of any kind at work on our planet.

Despite the facts presented by 90% of climatologists, the Pentagon, moderate Republicans, the Pentagon and the US Navy.

"US NAVY: "Given that the Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the globe, ... In addition, Arctic glaciers and the Greenland Ice Sheet are expected to change significantly and contribute to sea level rise in the coming decades."

Posted by Frosty the Snowman,
a resident of Menlo Park: The Willows
on Jan 9, 2014 at 9:44 pm

The amount of money that Exxon is throwing into research to disprove the AGW hogwash is a mere pittance compared to what the far left Obama Administration is shoveling out to prop up research scientist prostitutes who will give Obama the fudged AGW results he so desperately needs.

Any funding grant application today should have the words "Global Warming" in it somewhere if it wants to rise to the top of the pile when Obama frivolously gives away our hard earned tax dollars.

Climate Research spending has exploded from $175 million to $5 billion annually, and you'd better make sure your "results" support AGW, or Obama will take away your filthy lucre. "Peer Review" is a charade, as the Hoaxters now all review each other's work, and the cash register keeps ringing as our tax dollars are wasted. The preponderance of "climate scientists" feeding at the trough weren't even interested in AGW a few years ago, and it's the Titanic Band playing the new pop tune of "Ca-Ching, Ca-Ching".

The AGW Hoaxters now control many of the science journals, and are suppressing any honest research that exposes what John Coleman, founder of The Weather Channel, has called "the greatest scam in history". Objective scientists who question AGW are automatically condemned as the heathens of physics who haven't converted to the new religion of global panic. It's now 100% acceptable to fake your AGW results, because keeping a paycheck is the only thing that matters. Forget Honest Research!

It's critically important for the fraudsters to keep the AGW hoax going, for if the public ever catches on that global warming is a purely natural phenomenon, the money could dry up, because once AGW is exposed as a scam Obama could find it difficult to continue swindling the American Public.

Posted by joaxsters,
a resident of Portola Valley: Westridge
on Jan 10, 2014 at 1:56 am

lies = "The amount of money that Exxon is throwing into research to disprove the AGW hogwash is a mere pittance compared to what the far left Obama Administration is shoveling out to prop up research scientist prostitutes who will give Obama the fudged AGW"

PROVE IT.

First it was Clinton, then Gore, then Bush, now it's Obama. Your boogieman changes with the wind. Soon it will be another president.

"The amount of money that Exxon is throwing into research to disprove the AGW hogwash is a mere pittance compared to what ...... Obama Administration is shoveling out ...."

PROVE IT.

SHOW ME THE MONEY.

@Frosty claims it. @EasyDoesIt claims it, as do other posters. Yet they have no facts.

BP buys politicians - who keeps track of that money?

Try this - big oil, BIG COAL, etc.. keep funding the deniers - - -

"Conservative billionaires used a secretive funding route to channel nearly $120m (£77m) to more than 100 groups casting doubt about the science behind climate change, the Guardian has learned.

The funds, doled out between 2002 and 2010, helped build a vast network of thinktanks and activist groups working to a single purpose: to redefine climate change from neutral scientific fact to a highly polarising "wedge issue" for hardcore conservatives.

The millions were routed through two trusts, Donors Trust and the Donors Capital Fund.." Web Link

Soon, we will have to build levees to protect 101. What will the foolish deniers have to say then?

Posted by John Coleman,
a resident of another community
on Jan 10, 2014 at 2:40 am

John Coleman? John Coleman likes to call himself "John Coleman, Meteorologist" but he is not, by any stretch of the imagination, even his.

John Coleman, founder of The Weather Channel was and still is a 'TV weatherperson' replaced on the weather channel by a blonde bimbo (with all due respect to blonde 'weatherpersons') and is not a scientist by any stretch of the imagination.

Posted by Christine,
a resident of Woodside: Skywood/Skylonda
on Jan 10, 2014 at 9:23 am

I looked up John Coleman - he is a teevee weatherdude who wrote a book just to make some bucks. I guess he got kicked out of the weather channel and didn't make any coin. His book is the source for some of the fact-free noise written in this thread.

Funny note about the one republicon who admits warming is real - Chris Pufferfish Christie (Pufferfish is Romney's nickname for Christie). A bully who will get tossed for typical republicon dirty tricks like Nixon's enemies list. Pufferfish the Warmer acknowledger is a little hot under the collar now that his friend took the fifth all day yesterday. This ain't going away. Pufferfish's dirty trick killed an old woman. Are their any other republicons who acknowledge warming?

Posted by Cola with ice!,
a resident of Atherton: other
on Jan 10, 2014 at 10:27 am

Sea level will not rise. May have land sink, but that's not part of the hoax stream, YET! The ruler gulags get their ideas from ancient history...and the net, so I hope they miss this.

You fill you glass FULL of ice, to the very top. Pour water or whatever. let the ice melt. What happens? Nothing. The melted ice does NOT waterfall over the rim.

Again and again our ruling neo-marxists raise false flags designed to induce fear in perceptions.

I guess if they tax us to death, make us low grade sick, that we will simply not take the time to use reason and vote the political puppets of the ruling elite out of office. Oh...that's right. They have the TV, public 'education,' media. Talk about a multi-prong attack! We're in deep crap.

Posted by Cola with glacier and icesheets,
a resident of Atherton: other
on Jan 10, 2014 at 11:00 am

"Sea level will not rise."

Un******************************************believable.

If your cola analogy were so simple as your thoughts! Now take your glass and add glaciers and ice sheets above the waterline, and take a heat lamp to them. Just don't do it over your antique wood table.

Without a mop.

Don't think so? Why don't you ask the the United States military about it?

United States Navy: "Given that the Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the globe, ... In addition, Arctic glaciers and the Greenland Ice Sheet are expected to change significantly and contribute to sea level rise in the coming decades."

Posted by member,
a resident of another community
on Jan 10, 2014 at 12:24 pm

Comparing global climate change with a cocktail glass and ice.

I'm speechless. I guess there will always be deniers. Just shows as an important reminder that there are probably still fools who think fluoride is a communist conspiracy. I'm damn near thunderstruck someone would be that... argh, "simple", I guess?

But this is the same guy who above talked about climate change as a "stress-induced mental disorder"

Posted by member,
a resident of another community
on Jan 10, 2014 at 2:23 pm

Oh, Frosty, using multiple names.... tsk, tsk, tsk.

Perhaps, instead of drink analogies, you can tell us why the Navy is preparing for rising sea levels. And try something new, instead of personal attacks or defamation, perhaps you can defend your position with facts.

Posted by Michael S,
a resident of another community
on Jan 11, 2014 at 10:26 am

Nils-Axel Mörner was head of paleogeophysics and geodynamics at Stockholm University (1991-2005), president of the INQUA Commission on Sea Level Changes and Coastal Evolution (1999-2003), leader of the Maldives sea level project (2000-11), chairman of the INTAS project on geomagnetism and climate (1997-2003). He said:

"As someone with some expertise in the field, I can assure the low-lying countries that this is a false alarm. The sea is not rising precipitously. I have studied many of the low-lying regions in my 45-year career recording and interpreting sea level data. I have conducted six field trips to the Maldives; I have been to Bangladesh, whose environment minister was claiming that flooding due to climate change threatened to create in her country 20 million 'ecological refugees'. I have carefully examined the data of 'drowning' Tuvalu. And I can report that, while such regions do have problems, they need not fear rising sea levels.

My latest project was a field expedition to India, to the coast of Goa, combining observations with archeological information. Our findings are straightforward: there is no ongoing sea level rise. The sea level there has been stable for the last 50 years or so, after falling some 20cm in around 1960; it was well below the present level in the 18th century and some 50 to 60cm above the present in the 17th century. So it is clear that sea levels rise and fall entirely independently of so-called 'climate change'.

Explaining this to the public can be very hard. There are so many misconceptions about sea levels, not least that they are constant throughout the world. In fact, there are big variations  by as much as two metres. You need to think not of a constant, level surface, but of an agitated bath where the water is slopping back and forth. This is a dynamic process. In 900 ad, for example, the high level was in Tanzania and the low was in Peru; a century later this had reversed. It is also often forgotten that while sea levels may rise and fall ('eustasy'), so too may the land mass itself ('isostasy').

Today, all people talk about is the sea level  because it coincides with the IPCC's (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) narrative about melting icesheets, diminishing glaciers and man-made global warming. This leads to confusion over cases such as Bangladesh, whose plight is the exact opposite of the one claimed by environmental lobbyists and the IPCC.

Bangladesh is cursed because of rain over the Himalayas. This has nothing to do with the sea. It is also cursed because of the cyclones which push water inland. Again, this has nothing to do with the sea. Bangladesh is cursed because about half of its land mass lies less than eight metres above sea level  making it highly vulnerable to coastal flooding. But this has always been the fate of delta regions: it has little if anything to do with 'climate change'.

Two years ago, I visited the Sundarban delta area in Bangladesh and was able to observe clear evidence of coastal erosion, but no rise in sea level. In fact it has been stable there for 40 to 50 years. One way to tell this is by examining the mangrove trees, whose horizontal root systems now hang some 80cm above the mudflats as a result of erosion.

But the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report (2007) tells a different story about sea levels worldwide and is worth quoting in some detail: 'Even under the most conservative scenario, sea level will be about 40cm higher than today by the end of 21st century and this is projected to increase the annual number of people flooded in coastal populations from 13 million to 94 million. Almost 60 per cent of this increase will occur in South Asia.'

This is nonsense. The world's true experts on sea level are to be found at the INQUA (International Union for Quaternary Reseach) commission on Sea Level Changes and Coastal Evolution (of which I am a former president), not at the IPCC. Our research is what the climate lobby might call an 'inconvenient truth': it shows that sea levels have been oscillating close to the present level for the last three centuries. This is not due to melting glaciers: sea levels are affected by a great many factors, such as the speed at which the earth rotates. They rose in the order of 10 to 11cm between 1850 and 1940, stopped rising or maybe even fell a little until 1970, and have remained roughly flat ever since.

So any of the trouble attributed to 'rising sea levels' must instead be the result of other, local factors and basic misinterpretation. In Bangladesh, for example, increased salinity in the rivers (which has affected drinking water) has in fact been caused by dams in the Ganges, which have decreased the outflow of fresh water.

Even more damaging has been the chopping down of mangrove trees to clear space for shrimp farms. In one area, 19 square miles of mangrove vegetation in 1988 had by 2005 decreased to barely half a square mile. Mangrove forests offer excellent protection against the damage of cyclones and storms, so inevitably their systematic destruction has drastically increased local vulnerability to these problems.

At Tuvalu in the Pacific, I found no evidence of flooding  despite claims in Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth that it was one of those 'low-lying Pacific nations' whose residents have had to 'evacuate their homes because of rising seas'. In fact the tide gauge of the past 25 years clearly shows there has been no rise.

But the best-known 'victim' of rising sea levels is, without doubt, the Maldives. This myth has been boosted by the opportunism of Mohamed Nasheed, who stars in a new documentary called The Island President. The film's tagline is 'To save his country, he has to save our planet'. It is a depressing example of how Hollywood-style melodrama has corrupted climate science. Nasheed has been rehearsing his lines since being elected in 2009. 'We are drowning, our nation will disappear, we have to relocate the people,' he repeatedly claims.

If this is what President Nasheed believes, it seems strange that he has authorised the building of many large waterside hotels and 11 new airports. Or could it perhaps be that he wants to take a cut of the $30 billion fund agreed at an accord in Copenhagen for the poorest nations hit by 'global warming'? Within two weeks of Copenhagen, the Maldives foreign minister Ahmed Shaheed wrote to the US secretary of state Hillary Clinton to express support for the accord.

The IPCC's Fourth Assessment claimed that 'there is strong evidence' of sea level rising over the last few decades. It goes as far as to claim: 'Satellite observations available since the early 1990s provide more accurate sea level data with nearly global coverage. This decade-long satellite altimetry data set shows that since 1993, sea level has been rising at a rate of around 3mm yr1, significantly higher than the average during the previous half century. Coastal tide gauge measurements confirm this observation, and indicate that similar rates have occurred in some earlier decades.'

Almost every word of this is untrue. Satellite altimetry is a wonderful and vital new technique that offers the reconstruction of sea level changes all over the ocean surface. But it has been hijacked and distorted by the IPCC for political ends.

In 2003 the satellite altimetry record was mysteriously tilted upwards to imply a sudden sea level rise rate of 2.3mm per year. When I criticised this dishonest adjustment at a global warming conference in Moscow, a British member of the IPCC delegation admitted in public the reason for this new calibration: 'We had to do so, otherwise there would be no trend.'

This is a scandal that should be called Sealevelgate. As with the Hockey Stick, there is little real-world data to support the upward tilt. It seems that the 2.3mm rise rate has been based on just one tide gauge in Hong Kong (whose record is contradicted by four other nearby tide gauges). Why does it show such a rise? Because like many of the 159 tide gauge stations used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, it is sited on an unstable harbour construction or landing pier prone to uplift or subsidence. When you exclude these unreliable stations, the 68 remaining ones give a present rate of sea level rise in the order of 1mm a year.

If the ice caps are melting, it is at such a small rate globally that we can hardly see its effects on sea level. I certainly have not been able to find any evidence for it. The sea level rise today is at most 0.7mm a year  though, probably, much smaller.

We must learn to take the environmentalists' predictions with a huge pinch of salt. In 2005, the United Nations Environment Programme predicted that climate change would create 50 million climate refugees by 2010. That was last year: where are those refugees? And where are those sea level rises? The true facts are found by observing and measuring nature itself, not in the IPCC's computer-generated projections. There are many urgent natural problems to consider on Planet Earth  tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions not least among them. But the threat of rising sea levels is an artificial crisis.

Posted by Schadenfreude- The War Cry of Liberalism,
a resident of Menlo Park: The Willows
on Jan 11, 2014 at 11:21 am

Let's face it, liberals are unhappy people. The only way the get any feeling of satisfaction is to take control of other people's lives and make the rest of us miserable because if they are unhapy they certainly do not want the rest of the world to be happy. So they torment us with absurd regulations designed to give the United States a lower standard of living less freedom, and make it far less competitive in the Global market. And Religous freedom- forget about it.

Liberals always need a cause célèbre to rally fellow unhappy liberals. And nothing rallies the kool aid drinking acolytes than impending doom and gloom. The "Sky is falling" is true in the sense that the über liberal Obama Administration has had money falling out of the skies into the avaricious hands of research scientists who will joyously make the Faustian pact to give it whatever scientific results it desires to obtain their research grant "fixes". And the desired result that the Obama Administration has decreed is Anthropogenic Global Warming- the Opiate of the Liberal Masses.

A previous poster was talking about Exxon grant money. The Obama Administration has given away our hard earned taxe dollars in an amount that is over 3 orders of magnitude greater than Exxon. To even compare the economic might of Exxon with the U.S. Government is ludicrous and specious.

The indisputable facts are that the Sun, the Earth's orbit around the Sun, and volcanic activity far more affect the Earth's climate than man is currently doing now.

Yes we should be exploring non-fossil fuel alternatives such as nuclear energy but the hysterical left does not want to any meaningful solutions to transition to cleaner energy as witnessed by the disastrous Energy policy of Germany, a country that has substituted coal burning power plants for nuclear power plants thus increasing Germany's carbon footprint significantly.

Michaels posting another gasbag's long winded trassh, in this case - Nils-Axel Mörner - is a terrible example for the deniers, but they don't have any good ones. INQUA is "distressed" that Mörner continues to falsely "represent himself in his former capacity."

Nils-Axel Mörner is not a climatologist. His former expertise was in paleogeophysics and geodynamics. In briefly heading this study, he misrepresented data so he could make a few bucks off deniers and those that shovel money at them.

INQUA has already backpeddled on Nils-Axel Mörner. Their official position is:

"Climate change is real Web Link
There is now strong evidence that significant global warming is occurring. The evidence comes from direct measurements of rising surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures and, indirectly, from increases in average global sea levels, retreating glaciers, and changes in many physical and biological systems. It is very likely that most of the observed increase in global temperatures since the mid-twentieth century is due to human-induced increases in greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere (IPCC 2007)."

ALSO: Nils-Axel Mörner is falsely representing himself, according to the agency that he uses to claim his so called expertise:

" Current president of the INQUA commission on Coastal and Marine Processes, Professor Roland Gehrels of the University of Plymouth, says his (Mörner's) view do not represent 99% of its members, and the organisation has previously stated that it is "distressed" that Mörner continues to falsely "represent himself in his former capacity." "

Michale, Frosty, Hank, etc.. have nothing but a bunch of has-beens.

The take away from Michael's INQUA article, from INQUA itself: "...large-scale effects such as melting of large ice sheets, flooding low-lying regions throughout the world. The IPCC estimates that the combined effects of ice melting and sea water expansion from ocean warming will cause global mean sea level to rise between 0.2 and 0.6 meters between 1990 and 2100, although larger rises cannot be precluded.
Every year, many millions of people will be forced from their land and homes due to sea-Ievel rise. "

Go to INQUA, see for yourself Web Link Michael posted a denier who not only lies, but was caught and publicly chastised by his former organization.

Posted by Julie,
a resident of another community
on Jan 11, 2014 at 11:40 am

Is this the same Nils-Axel Morner who believes in dowsing?

Definition from Wikipedia:

Dowsing is a type of divination employed in attempts to locate ground water, buried metals or ores, gemstones, oil, gravesites,[1] and many other objects and materials, as well as so-called currents of earth radiation (ley lines), without the use of scientific apparatus. Dowsing is also known as divining (especially in reference to interpretation of results),[2] doodlebugging[3] (particularly in the United States, in searching for petroleum[4]) or (when searching specifically for water) water finding, water witching or water dowsing. There is no scientific evidence that dowsing is effective.[5]

"Mörner has written a number of works claiming to provide theoretical support for dowsing. He was elected "Deceiver of the year" by Föreningen Vetenskap och Folkbildning in 1995 for "organizing university courses about dowsing...". In 1997 James Randi asked him to claim One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge, making a controlled experiment to prove that dowsing works. Mörner declined the offer."

Anything for a buck, unless he has to prove it!! Exxon must pay really well!

Why believe 90% of scientists, or the US Navy, when you can believe a quack like this? The tinfoil is strong on this one, says Yoda.

Posted by Frosty the Snowman,
a resident of Menlo Park: The Willows
on Jan 12, 2014 at 3:23 pm

Fat Man in the bathtub,

The claim of AGW makes as much sense as the false rumor of President William Howard Taft getting stuck in a bathtub. Duc de La Rochefoucauld summed up the AGW hysteria most appropriately with the following quote:

"There goes another beautiful theory about to be murdered by a brutal gang of facts"

Funny, first thing I thought of (other than now failed 2016 GOP candidate Christie) is the Little Feat song "Fat Man in a Bathtub", newly revived because of Ben Fong-Torres and his book.

I see facts posted above by those that believe in science. I do not see facts posted by deniers (other than those already disproved, like the quack dowser dude.)

@frosty can't show the trail of money he claims, because it pales in comparison to the money thrown to deniers by Oil and Coal. Just look at who funds Heartland, the denier thinktank created by Oil and Coal.

Follow the money and it always leads back to Oil and Coal.

Someone's got to pay off the quacks like the dowser dude. Nobody's that stupid without getting some coin for it.

Also - Waiting for Columbus is one of the great albums of all time. A nice live version of Fat Man in a Bathtub, Willing, Dixie Chicken, etc.. Points to @fatmaninabathtub, but I assume he meant the morbidly obese republican going down in Jersey.

Yet again, @frosty has NOTHING (except access to wikiquotes!) No facts, just noise.

What does the United States navy have to say about rising sea levels?

"Given that the Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the globe, ... In addition, Arctic glaciers and the Greenland Ice Sheet are expected to change significantly and contribute to sea level rise in the coming decades." (hat tip to the original poster of this!)

@frosty... did you google 'fat man in a bathtub'?

What comes up on the first page? Your arcane Taft reference, or the phenomenal Little Feat, led by the late, great Lowell George? Yup! Click on the youtube at the top.

related to 'fat man in a bathtub': looks like the obese guv shut down the world's busiest bridge the same day that investors in a redevelopment project, located at the foot of the bridge, were meeting.

Quite the coincidence!!! His bullying will lead the way to one of the wacko far right candidates being nominated, setting up the path for Hillary.

Posted by Frosty the Snowman,
a resident of Menlo Park: The Willows
on Jan 13, 2014 at 9:54 am

The Scientific American has published an article entitled "Proof on Ice: Southern Greenland Was Once Green; Earth Warmer.

"Biologist Eske Willerslev of the University of Copenhagen and an international team of colleagues discovered DNA from alder, spruce, pine and yew trees at the glacier's base as well as insects ranging from butterflies to spiders. This is the "first evidence for a forested southern Greenland," Willerslev says. And based on the tree species found, Greenland must have been warmer than 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius) in summer and never colder than one degree F (17 degrees C) in winter, much warmer than present conditions."

@frosty found a forest in Greenland, once upon a time. (that time being 800,000 years ago: at least @frosty isn't going with the stupid denier myth - "Greenland was green when the Vikings, blah, blah, blah...)

I find seashells in mountains. Big deal.

Best you have, @frosty? You completely misinterpreted the study, which acknowledges planet warming, and warns it may be worse than predicted.

From @frosty's own link, they admit, as most scientists do, that it is warmer, and sea levels will rise: "This helps us put current warming into context, but it really has nothing to say about the mechanisms driving the CURRENT WARMING." Web Link

From the study@Frosty spouts off about: "It could mean that our current warming is the result of both natural processes and human influences, and we may be heading for EVEN BIGGER TEMPERATURE INCREASES than we previously thought," Sharp said.

Posted by gunste,
a resident of Portola Valley: Ladera
on Jan 13, 2014 at 1:57 pm

The Congress will not do anything until the water laps at its door step. Unfortunately, when I checked, the capitol is situated at a considerable (relatively) elevation of 50 feet or so. Therefore, do not hold your breath.
Our ignoramuses know best, they think.

Posted by Easy Does It,
a resident of Menlo Park: Downtown
on Jan 13, 2014 at 5:21 pm

Several people seem not to have noticed that Frosty was joking when he interspersed his list of 20 verifiable facts about climate science with a dash of comic relief when he referred to global warming hysteria as a "stress-induced mental disorder." Maybe not funny to some people, but clearly meant to be so.
Additionally, some seem to have assumed when I said "Follow the money," that I meant the money paid to climate scientists. Not by a long shot. True, many scientists climbed aboard the GW train for the sake of their careers, but we are talking about modest money in those cases. Nothe really big stakes, to be measured in billions and trillions of dollars, play out at a different level entirely. And those big stakes are one of the red flags that all is not what it seems regarding so-called anthropogenic global warming.
Here's a link that sheds a bit of light on that money trail: Web Link.
Just because the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) faltered doesn't alter the fact that Gore and his GIM corporation, Goldman Sachs' David Blood, Mark Ferguson, and Peter Harris, as well as Soros and Obama through the Joyce Foundation, and Franklin Raines of Fannie Mae disrepute, stood to make huge windfalls through this cap-and-trade emporium. The projected annual revenues from this carbon casino was in the trillions. In all likelihood, we'll see replacement climate exchanges before long.
But even the mega-money involved is not the main reason for the draconian changes being pushed in the name of "saving the planet." Historically, governments use fear-mongering techniques, of which global warming/climate change is clearly one, to control the public. Hence Ben Franklin's famous quote which essentially says that those who sacrifice liberty for safety end up with "neither liberty nor safety." When your government tells you there is a crisis and only governmental planning, rules and regulations can solve it so these will be imposed on you, it's time to worry. F.A. Hayek wrote about the unavoidable outcome of centralized top-down planning in his classic study The Road to Serfdom. Not easy reading but very illuminating.
Central planning, it turns out, can't help but result in the state's steadily increasing control over people's lives and choices. Of course there are always plausible reasons given why we don't have any choice in the matter. If this sounds foreign to you, read up on Plan Bay Area, and the Grand Boulevard Initiative, both of which are being planned for our local communities by regional boards that have usurped our local control. And the reasons we're given for why we need to suddenly fill our suburbs with high-density zoning, multi-story housing projects, dedicated bus-only lanes on El Camino, "road diets," etc.? Global warming. Right.

Whaaaaa????? Are you joking like your @frosty posts are supposedly joking? How do we know when an extremist with wild, unsubstantiated views is joking versus not?

A link to a blog post with ZERO substantiated facts is all you have????? A blog post at investorvillage????????? You ARE joking again, right?

Cap and trade was a republican idea and supported through the mid 2000's (until Obama said okay,) initiated by Reagan and supported by Bush Sr, McCain, Bush Jr and a host of others, as a free market solution.

Reagan conceived the first cap-and-trade program (to cut pollution) was used in the 1980s to phase out lead in gasoline at a lower cost. Here's a clip from the EPA, about Reagan's free market cap and trade: " "estimated savings from the lead trading program of approximately 20 percent over alternative programs that did not provide for lead BANKING, a cost savings of about $250 million per year."

Reagan also signed the Montreal Protocol in 1987 to cut the production and use of chemicals that deplete the ozone layer. Reagan established a cap-and-trade system to implement the reductions the protocol required.

So every time you bash cap and trade, you are bashing St. Ronnie and market based solutions. What a socialist!! What a commie!!

You have yet to follow the money. Heartland and the various denier thinktanks are funded by oil, gas and coal money. Fact. That is the money to follow. It's the same trail, using the same methods, that Big Tobacco used. I won't bother with links, when any google search for "Heartland funded by oil, gas and coal money" will get you plenty.

But seriously!! A blog post is the best you have for "following the money"!?!?!?

How about a federal investigation, to show us the money? Darryl Issa must have something!

Look at the current federal investigation today for 2016 GOP frontrunner Chrissy Christie. The Big Guv used millions in taxpayer money to run politically timed ads with his mug on it, paid for with millions from Sandy relief money!

And that bridge thing isn't going away. A huge scandal, just like the Bridge to Nowhere that Sarah Palin supported before she didn't support it any more. Web Link

Posted by military/corp/gulag-political complex,
a resident of another community
on Jan 14, 2014 at 9:46 am

Trust the military. Trust the corps. Trust the neo-Marxist political. And trust the mass media owned by international corps. Allow every idiot to vote after their minds are mushed by the media and ed system. Look at the comments here that think global warming is real.

CORRECTED: "Look at the COMMENTS here from the global warming deniers. Look at the facts above that support science."

Seriously: a blog post as your best evidence, your second best is to misinterpret a Greenland glacier study that clearly states "this helps us put current warming into context" - that's the best you have? Wow.

As you say, follow the money (big oil, coal and gas) and connect the dots!

Posted by Easy Does It,
a resident of Menlo Park: Downtown
on Jan 14, 2014 at 11:32 am

Some people keep shooting the messenger, rather than doing their own research on the message, let alone doing so with an open mind. They are apparently only interested in proving themselves right, and seem to enjoy ridiculing others who hold different views.
There is no way to come at the truth as long as one is caught in the theater of partisan politics. It is too easy to simply shoot down anything that comes from what one sees as the "other side." And doing so insures that one will never learn anything that conflicts with one's pre-established perspective, which is, not surprisingly, generally that of the "official story."

When someone has ZERO facts, and their best link is a blog post with no facts, what do they do? Claim they are a "messenger" (though one with no factual evidence) getting "shot".

They erroneously write: "There is no way to come at the truth as long as one is caught in the theater of partisan politics."

Even though patently false (one can demonstrably arrive at the truth even in partisanship, ie.. it's the GOP that vocalized the term "legitimate rape" in 2012, for example) let's answer that with a somewhat non-partisan source: the Pentagon, which started planning for rising sea levels under Bush.

United States Navy - "Given that the Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the globe ... In addition, Arctic glaciers and the Greenland Ice Sheet are expected to change significantly and contribute to sea level rise in the coming decades."

An amazing thread! Virtually every fantasy put forward by the deniers was either completely unsubstantiated or countered by facts disproving the denier fantasy. I've never seen such a poor display by deniers.

NASA scientists say 2013 tied with 2009 and 2006 for the seventh warmest year since 1880, continuing a long-term trend of rising global temperatures.

With the exception of 1998, the 10 warmest years in the 134-year record all have occurred since 2000, with 2010 and 2005 ranking as the warmest years on record.

"Long-term trends in surface temperatures are unusual and 2013 adds to the evidence for ongoing climate change," GISS climatologist Gavin Schmidt said. "While one year or one season can be affected by random weather events, this analysis shows the necessity for continued, long-term monitoring."

Scientists emphasize that weather patterns always will cause fluctuations in average temperatures from year to year, but the continued increases in greenhouse gas levels in Earth's atmosphere are driving a long-term rise in global temperatures. Each successive year will not necessarily be warmer than the year before, but with the current level of greenhouse gas emissions, scientists expect each successive decade to be warmer than the previous."

================

Or you can just put you foil hat on and listen to the think tanks funded by the exaction industries. And have a nice cool glass of West Virginian (coal cleaner laced) water as it heats up.

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